


L'Enfant Divin

by Shenandoah_Risu



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-26
Updated: 2011-06-26
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:25:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shenandoah_Risu/pseuds/Shenandoah_Risu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s not here to save him. She’s here because he loves her. Because she loves him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	L'Enfant Divin

**Author's Note:**

> **Title: L'Enfant Divin**  
>  Author: Shenandoah Risu  
> Rating: PG-13  
>  **Spoilers** : Season 2 up to "Visitation"  
>  **Content Flags** : canon infant death  
>  **Word Count** : around 11,460  
>  **Summary** : _She’s not here to save him. She’s here because he loves her. Because she loves him._  
>  **Characters** : Carmen Johansen, Everett Young, Tamara Johansen, the Eden folks, the Destiny crew  
>  **Author's Notes** : Written for the LJ Comm Stargateland writing challenge Big!Bang 2011.  
>  **Disclaimer** : I don't own SGU. I wouldn't know what to do with it. Now, Young... Young I'd know what to do with. ;-)  
>  **Thanks for reading! Feedback = Love. ;-)**

**L'Enfant Divin**

He wakes in the middle of the night – night being a relative term, of course, as there is neither day nor night aboard the Destiny – the kind of strange awakening that isn’t precipitated by a dream or an outside influence like a noise; he wakes because he has finished sleeping, because his body has reconnected with his mind.

It is dark in the room, the vague streaks of blue and blue-like colors brushing over the wall opposite the window, rainbow fingertips stroking the ancient metal of the ship, gentling it, messages written in code, ethereal, vanishing again in an instant.

He watches, mesmerized by the ever-changing patterns, not quite awake but definitely no longer asleep. He closes his eyes, sighing deeply, seeking out the depths of sleep once more, the blessed nothingness, the in-between, an escape from the pain in every part of his bruised and battered body.

His heart beats faster, a wave of heat coursing through him, muscles tensing in instinctive reflex, the trembling shower of adrenaline.

There is someone else in his room.

 ****  
oOo  


They don’t know where she came from.

One moment she was simply – there, in the middle of the room, a blinding white light receding, leaving them blinking in surprise.

She opens her eyes and looks at them, yawns and makes a soft gurgling sound, a hum of pleasure. She smiles at them. They look at each other in total confusion, breaths held collectively, a gasp frozen in time.

One of them pulls the shawl off her shoulders as if in slow motion and approaches her, reaching out with her finger. She grasps it, pulls it towards her mouth. She’s hungry. The woman looks at the others. They get down on their knees, approach slowly, reaching out to touch her feet, her hands, her stomach, the cord neatly severed and tied. A man wraps her in the scarf and picks her up. She squeals a little and he rocks her gently.

The spell is broken. They crowd around, whispering excitedly, cooing, smiling. One of them reaches into her bag, pulling out a bottle; the formula is warm, just right, and even though it’s not really what she wanted, it’s what she has, and she is content.

She drinks. She burps. She falls asleep.

 ****  
oOo  


“Yes,” Young says into the darkness. “What is it?”

He blinks, squints his eyes, looks around. Reaches for the bedside lantern. Turns it on.

He is alone.

His heart is hammering wildly in his chest, he tries to remember if maybe he had a nightmare, forgotten as soon as he woke, but he clearly recalls dreaming of tall purple flowers swaying softly in the breeze, snapdragons, perhaps, or foxglove, or lupines.

He ruffles his hair, checks the time – 3:30 am, nowhere near time to get up, and pads barefoot down the hall to the bathrooms for a perfunctory pee, because he’s already up and so he might as well.

The ship is quiet, the corridor deserted. He touches his nose, winces at the pain of where one of the Lucians has smashed his face. He sniffles, still tasting the trickle of blood seeping down the back of his throat.

The headache is still there, too; he probably has a minor concussion. Although, compared to others of his crew, he’s gotten away relatively unscathed.

Returning to his quarters he turns on the lights and stops dead in his tracks: there, on his bed, in the middle of his mess of sheets and blankets, is a nest-like impression, as if something had been placed there and picked up again.

Young rubs his forehead, tries to remember what he's done, and can’t. He touches the spot on the bed.

It’s warm.

 ****  
oOo  


They fuss over her excitedly, and sure enough, they find a wooden cradle that has never been there before in the bedroom. Nobody gives it a second thought; they are used to things simply appearing out of nowhere, usually right about the time when they need it. A baby, though, that’s something new. And she’s a perfectly ordinary human baby girl, with all her bits and a mop of fine blond hair and big brown eyes, and tiny fingernails and toenails and ears so dainty they look like they’re made of paper.

There are diapers in the dresser and ointment and powder. She looks at them sleepily as they wrap her carefully, then bundle her up in blankets. She dozes off again.

They pass her around and everyone smiles and rejoices. A child was given to them, when they had all wondered why none of the women were pregnant yet, after all these months. Many of them should be carrying new life, as it is not for lack of trying. And yet, there she is, now theirs, and not theirs. Theirs to take care of and love.

 ****  
oOo  


He looks around, checks his room thoroughly and finds nothing.

Sitting down with a groan he pulls on his pants, socks and boots, slips into his uniform jacket. The hallways seem unusually cold to him – loss of blood will do that to you.

He ambles down to the infirmary.

Vanessa James is asleep in a chair by the door, and he can’t blame her, as he places his hand on her arm. She wakes slowly, staring at him with bleary eyes. He places a finger across his lips and helps her up, leading her to one of the empty cots. She falls asleep again as soon as she feels the mattress underneath her, and he unfolds a blanket and covers her up. She never even notices.

Young moves on to the last bed in the back. TJ is asleep, a faint smile on her lips, and he does not have any reason to wake her. He pulls up a stool, sits down and looks at her.

And he can’t stop the tears from rolling down his face, can’t stand the ache in his heart, his gut.

He takes her hand and in her sleep her fingers curl around his.

He feels empty inside, cold, shivering, as if barefoot in the snow. Her hand is warm, slim against his big rough paw.

He rests his cheek on the edge of the bed, comforted by her presence.

 ****  
oOo  


The blinding light brings another visitor. Robert Caine is not surprised when TJ wakes up in the other bed in his cabin. He tries to explain but can’t. She doesn’t understand what happened, and he senses the deep abyss of fear in her. There is an aura of death surrounding her that makes him tread carefully – she’s been hurt and he sees no point in adding to her pain.

She has so many questions. He has no answers for her. Instead he takes her on a walk to see a new nebula that has appeared in the sky over the lake. He knows he has to tell her, and she runs back to the cabin, horrified, but her daughter is sleeping soundly and all is well.

She tells him her name: Carmen. He smiles, and it pains him, because he knows her time is up, and seconds later the bright light glows and she is gone.

The baby wakes and looks at him. He picks her up and soothes her, sings quietly to her until she falls asleep again.

 ****  
oOo  


“Colonel?”

Camile lays a gentle hand on his shoulder, holds out a piece of cloth.

“Your nose is bleeding again.”

He jerks awake, sees the pool of blood on the linens, sets TJ’s hand back down.

He’s confused but takes the cloth and presses it against his nose. He stands up, sways a little, sleep-drunk still.

“You should go back to bed,” Camile says softly. “Want me to walk you over?”

He shakes his head, then swears softly under his breath as the room spins for a moment. “No thanks.” His voice is muffled by the cloth. Camile steps aside and watches him leave, worry and compassion etched on her face.

He sinks back down on his bed. How long was he gone? He doesn’t know. Watching the blue rainbow lights for a few moments he then falls asleep with his clothes and boots on, curled up in the middle of the bed in the warm spot.

 ****  
oOo  


She has a birthmark on her sternum; it’s shaped like the Destiny, and they think of it as a coincidence, but truthfully, they don’t really care. She’s an easy child to take care of in any way. They take turns feeding her, changing her diapers, bathing her. There is never any lack of volunteers, so they make a schedule to ensure that everyone gets their fair share of time with her.

She loves bath time, splashing and laughing and giggling and blowing spit bubbles.

“She never cries,” Norris says, and the others nod as if it was the most ordinary thing to say, as if no baby ever cried. Truthfully, she has no reason to. Everything is always there for her, they seem to know what she needs or wants. She likes to see them happy.

She grows quickly, faster than anyone had expected, but they have no frame of reference, no other children to compare to her, no experience with babies, either.

One morning she greets them sucking on her whole hand, and when Dana gently pulls her fingers out of her mouth she sees the tiny white line in her gum.

The snow is melting, and they’re having a teething party, everybody shows up with gifts – items home-made by clumsy hands unaccustomed to handicrafts, other things they found inexplicably tucked away in cupboards and dressers in their cabins.

 ****  
oOo  


Young goes to see TJ the next morning. She doesn’t remember him coming to her in the night, the blood stain having been covered up and then removed with a change of sheets.

He sits with her, his head bowed, cloth pressed against his nose, and nobody can see the tears soaking up in there as well. She knows, though. She can tell by the tiny hitches in his breath – she’s known his entire alphabet of breaths for some time now, and she can’t bear to look at him, so she turns her face away. They don’t speak. There is nothing to say.

And still he craves her presence, and his being there comforts her. She feels his pain and yet she can’t add her own to his. She’s seen her daughter. Carmen is safe on the manufactured planet, spirited away to safety by forces she cannot understand for reasons she refuses to understand.

Why was she sent back? Why couldn’t she stay with her baby?

She hears Young sniffle – pain, grief, congestion and nausea, she translates, and she knows the answer.

And she can’t accept it.

 ****  
oOo  


“They look like little grains of rice,” Peter says, as Carmen nibbles on his finger. He, Dana and Val are out in the early Spring sun, admiring the new teeth that seem to have popped out of her lower jaw overnight. “Aren’t kids supposed to be wailing for months when they are teething? And you get those jelly-filled rings you stick in the freezer so they can soothe their gums?”

Dana elbows him.

“She’s not just any kid. Maybe that’s why. She’s special.”

“She’s dead, is what she is, if what TJ said is true,” Val muses. “And They brought her here, so she could live with us, so she can be alive and safe. A little toothache cannot possibly bother her.”

Carmen claps her hands and reaches for Peter’s finger again.

“She seems pretty lively for a dead kid,” he smiles. “They must love her as much as we all do, to save her, to give her another chance.” And he holds his face into the sun, the sun They made for them, and Val leans against him and sighs happily.

 ****  
oOo  


Young wakes again to a presence in his room.

He calls out and there is no answer.

He goes back to sleep.

She smiles and claps her hands, enjoying the different noise it makes here on the ship. The rainbow lights meandering across the wall catch her attention and she watches in fascination for some time. A cough and a snort draw her gaze back to the bed and the man sleeping fitfully next to her.

She reaches out, touches the wound on his nose. Her fingers look different after that. She puts them in her mouth. It tastes strange, and yet familiar, a sense-memory she can’t interpret yet. She understands pain in others and she scrunches up her face, then touches him again and watches as the blood dries, watches the skin knit beneath her tiny fingers, watches tissue and bone join together, nerves regenerating. Yes, that’s better.

She giggles gleefully and pats her legs. His sleep is calmer now, deep and full.

She smiles.

 ****  
oOo  


Camile tries to get her to stay in bed but TJ can’t stand it anymore. She needs to get out of this place of death, and something draws her along, to the observation lounge.

Destiny drops out of FTL, and there before her is her proof. Proof that her baby is alive, because she’s seen it before, knows where it first appeared.

The nebula over the lake on the planet, the cosmic message that heralded the arrival of her daughter.

And she weeps.

The pain in her belly is excruciating, but the pain in her heart is greater, and she cries for her daughter who is so far away, and whom she will never see again. She cries for Everett, who, despite everything, would have been a great father, who saw redemption for his mistakes in her, whose hope for a better life, for a future had centered on the life she carried. And she cries for herself, for having lost that which she never wanted, and what she now wants more than anything else in the world. She cries for her friends who protected her and helped her out, who loved her child as soon as they knew about her. She cries for her parents and siblings who would never even know.

And the colors are so beautiful that she can’t help but smile underneath her tears.

She barely notices the gentle touch on her arm.

“Hey,” he sighs softly – longing, helplessness, concern, loneliness – she knows.

She turns away from him. He lets her go.

He watches her leave.

 ****  
oOo  


She’s crawling now and someone always has to watch her to make sure she’s okay, but they all know that she’d be, even if they left her out there by herself, that They would look after her. But if that’s what They had wanted it’s what They would have done. Instead she was delivered to their home, and they never questioned the assignment. Carmen scurries around between their legs, playing hide and seek, laughing in delight and squealing loudly when they pretend to suddenly find her.

She loves it when Vince Kwan gives her airplane rides and then gallops across the flowering meadow with her on his shoulders, while she pats his bald head and everyone laughs.

They find clothes for her, pants and socks and little shoes, shirts and sweaters. And one warm day Dana dresses her in just one of her t-shirts, and Carmen pulls herself up on Caine’s leg and takes her first steps.

She wobbles a little, for sure, but by the end of the day she’s pretty confident waddling around from one set of welcoming arms into the next.

“Bit early to be walking, no?” Norris scratches his head.

Caine shrugs. “She wants to walk. She walks. Who cares? Come here, little one.”

And she gives him a big smile, four teeth glinting in the sunset, and he catches her as she tumbles into his embrace.

 ****  
oOo  


“This is looking so much better today,” Barnes says as she gingerly checks on the cut on his nose. “How’s the pain?”

Young scrunches up his face. “No pain,” he says slowly, and shakes his head. “How’s that possible?”

Barnes shrugs. “Maybe you heal fast. Maybe you got some rest and it finally closed up for good.”

He stares at her.

She shakes her head. “Look, I’m not even a medic, I’m just a first responder. I can patch people up and help out around here, but I know nothing about how a nasty cut like that really heals. Gift horse, Colonel, okay? Don’t jinx it, Sir.”

He nods at her, carefully touching his nose.

She sighs as she watches him leave. Minutes later TJ comes in, hand pressed against her stomach. Barnes helps her clean the cut on her abdomen and change the dressing, applying a little of the reptilian venom to numb the pain.

“Better?”

TJ nods. “Yeah, thank you.”

She leaves again, walking slowly, the pain under control for the moment.

 ****  
oOo  


He looks up, having dozed off at his desk again while doing paperwork. He rubs his stiff neck, then gasps as he sees a shadow move beyond the sofa.

“Who’s there,” he asks, he voice rough from sleep.

Two tiny hands appear on the back rest of the sofa, then a little head with a mop of unruly blond hair and big brown eyes.

Young gapes.

She pulls herself up all the way.

He hides his face in his hands. “Oh my god…”

The concussion, maybe. He’s had a blazing headache the whole time, for days on end. He hasn’t slept much, and now he’s hallucinating  –  a toddler of all things… it scares him more than he cares to admit.

He folds his arms on the desk and rests his head, face down.

She watches him quietly.

His breathing evens out, his body relaxes.

She cocks her head to the side and wrinkles her tiny brow. Something isn’t right. She pulls herself up a little more.

The bed. Ah, right…

And Young gets up, fast asleep, and stumbles over to the bed, curling up on his side.

She watches him for a little while, then climbs backwards off the sofa and crawls across the floor, pulling herself up at the bed frame. She likes it when his face is this close to hers. She giggles and pats his hand.

He wakes with a yelp.

The room is empty.

 ****  
oOo  


 “Where’s Carmen?”

They’ve noticed that she seems to disappear from time to time, in the blink of an eye, and they think they just imagined it at first. But then it happens more often. At first they are alarmed and search for her, but she always shows up again seconds or minutes later, hiding behind the bed or the stove and squealing with joy when they catch her and toss her up into the air. She loves that.

“Well, wherever she goes when she goes, I suppose,” Caine replies, craning his neck. “She’ll be back.”

Val chews on her bottom lip.

“You don’t think we get a failing grade if we just let her go like that?”

Caine puts his book down.

“Look, she was playing right here on the rug. When I looked up she was gone. I don’t think there’s anything we actually _could_ do. She comes and goes. I suppose she knows why. And They probably know.”

There’s the sound of a raspberry coming from the other side of the room.

Caine smiles. “See? Told you so. Come over here, little lady, so Val can make sure you’re okay.”

And Carmen comes out from behind the table. Caine points at Val who reaches out for her with her arms, and Carmen waddles over as fast as her little legs will allow, crashing to the floor in front of her. Val cries out and scoops her up.

“Oh my goodness – look at your knees! She hurt herself – Robert, come look!”

Caine puts his book away and gets up. “Let me see.”

And sure enough, blood is seeping onto skinned little knees. Carmen tilts her head and looks on in fascination. Caine gets a clean cloth and wets it, carefully wiping off the blood as Val holds her still.

“There. All better. It’ll heal.”

And Carmen reaches out and pats her knees and smiles at them.

Later that day there is no trace of the scrapes.

 ****  
oOo  


“You shouldn’t be here, TJ. You are far from healed. You need to be in bed, resting. It’s been some major surgery.”

Dr. Brightman has come to visit via the communication stones.

“I dream of her,” TJ says without preamble.

Brightman nods.

“I’m no psychiatrist, but I’d say that’s quite normal.”

“No, I mean, I can feel her, and she’s already past the crawling stage and walking quite well. I see her grow up in my dreams.”

The doctor sits down next to her and gathers her in her arms.

“I’m so sorry, TJ. I have a pretty hard time dealing with it myself, I have no idea how you’re coping… It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, believe me.”

TJ bites her lip. “I can imagine,” she whispers. “No, actually, I can’t. Because I know she’s still alive, back there with Caine and the others, on the new planet.”

They sit quietly for some time.

“Well, I suppose we’ll never know for sure,” Dr. Brightman finally says. “If your heart tells you she’s there and she’s alive and well, then there’s no harm in believing that, is there?”

TJ shakes her head.

“Now let me look at the sutures for a sec, see how it’s all healing.”

She pulls up her shirt and shimmies out of her pants. Brightman nods to herself.

“There’s no infection, so that’s good. I take it Corporal Barnes has been doing a great job with the venom. But I wish it would heal a little better, it should be farther along than this.” She gives TJ a stern look. “And it won’t get any better if you keep pushing yourself like that. You have to stop and give yourself some time.”

“I can’t… I just think of doing – stupid things. I got drunk, even.”

“And did it help?”

“While I was drunk, yes, it sure did. Afterwards – not so much.”

Brightman sighs.

“Okay then. How about you limit yourself to things you can do sitting down? What about that young Lucian guy, Koz? Can we get him to do some of the heavy lifting around here?”

TJ smiles under her tears. “Yeah, maybe.”

“And Barnes can keep an eye on him.”

TJ nods. “I’ll talk to Camile and the Colonel.”

Brightman sits down again.

“How’s he doing?”

TJ shrugs. “Hiding, I think.”

Brightman sighs deeply. “Yep, that sounds like him. I’ve been patching the man up for years now, and it’s always like that with him.”

“He’s lost a child, too.”

“Exactly.”

She pats her leg. “Okay, now. I want to see some progress on that cut next time.”

TJ smiles and they say their goodbyes.

 ****  
oOo  


She sits in the middle of his bed when he comes in at the end of the day.

He looks at the bottle of hooch he just picked up from Brody’s still: nope, still full.

He shakes his head. “I haven’t even had a sip yet,” he mutters.

She watches as he walks over to the sofa, sighs deeply and starts unlacing his boots. He pours himself a drink and gulps it down in one go, grimacing as the strong brew burns down his throat. He cradles the cup in his hands.

When he turns and looks at his bed she’s gone. He scoffs and turns back – and she’s sitting on the sofa across from him. She looks older than last time. He rubs his eyes. She cocks her head.

“Da-da,” she says and claps her hands, bouncing a little.

He drops the cup and she watches as it rolls under the table, then turns around and slides off the sofa, crawling across the floor to the cup and picking it up.

“Oh, no, no,” he says, “That’s not for you.” He kneels down and reaches under the table but she scurries out on the other side, giggling.

Young holds out his hand. “May I please have my cup back?”

She looks at him, then walks around the table and holds the cup up to him.

“Thank you.”

She comes closer and places her hand on his knee.

“Damn it, Brody, whatever you used for this batch…”

She rests her cheek on his knee and looks up at him, her hands fisting in the fabric of his pants; he can feel the cloth rubbing against his skin.

He leans back and closes his eyes.

She pulls herself up on the sofa next to him and pats his arm.

“What,” he mumbles.

“Da-da,” she says.

He looks at her with half-lidded eyes and smiles a little. “Hi…”

“Da-da,” she repeats.

He reaches out for her and pulls her into his lap. She curls up against him, looking up at him as his eyes slide shut and his chest rises and sinks slowly, evenly.

She watches him sleep for a long time.

 ****  
oOo  


“Say ‘Peter’,” Val encourages Carmen.

The little girl giggles.

“Say ‘Peter’,” Val repeats.

“Oh, it’s okay,” Peter grumbles. “If she doesn’t want to say it she doesn’t have to.”

Rachel enters.

“Hi Val, Peter. Hi Carmen.”

Carmen walks over to her, reaches for her hand.

“You wanna go for a walk? Yeah, Auntie Rachel always does good walkies with you, right?”

Val laughs. “Have fun, Rachel. Kwan’s up next.”

And they step out into the warm sunlight.

Carmen stops and reaches out to the bright glare, her eyes closed. Rachel watches. It looks like a private conversation, a prayer, perhaps. She’s never seen it before and kneels down next to her.

“Carmen?”

She touches her sternum, turns her head, opens her eyes and smiles.

Then she runs, laughing and screaming at the top of her lungs as Rachel chases after her.

 ****  
oOo  


He experiences a vivid sensation of falling, the sudden absence of gravity. He twitches violently and opens his eyes.

“Da-da,” says the little girl in his lap and pats his chest.

He looks around carefully, but he’s alone with her and the dancing colors on the wall. He clears his throat.

“Who are you, really? And why do you keep coming here?”

She crawls off his lap and sits down next to him, resting her head on his thigh.

He reaches out slowly, hesitantly, and brushes her hair out of her face. He shakes his head and the tears come unbidden once again.

“Some sorry drunk I am,” he tells her. “I never even knew you. I must have really wanted to.”

She sits up and looks at his hand, then wraps her fingers around his crippled pinky, looking up at him.

“Combat injury,” he explains. “I was a POW. I tried to splint it but it healed badly.”

“Da-da?”

“No, it doesn’t hurt. Not anymore. They’d have to re-break it to fix it. It’s not worth it. And we have nobody… TJ can’t…”

He gets up suddenly, toppling her over in the process.

“Are you haunting her, too? Because if you do I’ll never forgive you. Hasn’t she suffered enough?”

She turns and slips off the sofa, walks up to him and hugs his leg.

He balls his fists, looking away. “If you so much as make her cry –“

She looks up at him and shakes her head. “Nu-uh,” she says, and tugs at his pants.

He bends down and picks her up. She wraps her arms around his neck, tucks her head under his chin.

He looks at the liquor bottle and closes his eyes.

 ****  
oOo  


Their world is turned upside down when Rachel wakes a few days later, covered in an ugly rash that quickly progresses to open sore lesions.

They have no idea what to do.

Caine uses some of Carmen’s baby oil to soothe the oozing wounds. “If it’s contagious we’ve all been exposed, so what difference does it make?”

Rachel is running a high fever, at times she is delirious, and when she’s conscious she cries, writhing in pain, begging for help.

They look at each other, scared, wishing they had someone with more than basic first aid experience.

“Carmen,” Rachel sobs, and they turn and see the girl standing by the door.

Caine shrugs and waves her over. Rachel cries as she takes her hand. But then she calms down as Carmen places her hand on her forehead, and shortly thereafter she falls asleep. They watch in a stupor as Carmen touches the sick woman’s face and arms, then sighs deeply and leaves.

They sit with Rachel all night. She never wakes, and they expect her to die.

But in the morning she gets up, her fever broken, the angry red of the pustules having faded to a light pink.

A week later, she’s back to normal. Nobody else gets sick.

They remember it as if it had been a bad dream.

Caine cuts himself while chopping vegetables. Kwan twists his ankle climbing rocks. Peter hits his head on the frame of a cabin door that’s too low. Dana burns her hand on the hot stove. Norris steps on a sharp rock, cutting his foot. Val gets a huge blister on a long hike.

Carmen touches her chest, then the injury, and they are better.

 ****  
oOo  


He carries her around in his room, strangely comforted by her warm little body.

She places her palm on his neck, feels the pulse there, watching the tiny jumps under his skin. He kisses the top of her head.

“I wish you were real,” he says. “Emily had three miscarriages. I never even saw them, I just picked her up at the hospital afterwards. We were done trying, anyway, the next time could have killed her.”

She touches his cheek.

“Daddy,” she says.

He blinks back tears. “I would have loved to be a daddy some day. And there you are, and you almost made it into the world, and then…”

He shakes his head.

“I can’t believe I’m talking to you.”

She squirms in his arms as the familiar blur-shift of the ship dropping out of FTL momentarily skews his vision. His radio crackles to life, Brody calling him to the Control Interface Room.

“I gotta go,” he says and sets her down.

On the way out he picks up the cup and takes the last sip of liquor.

She stands there, watching him leave.

He stops at the door, turning back.

She holds up her hand and waves.

 ****  
oOo  


Vince Kwan and Carmen are at the edge of the forest where they’ve found a bunch of glittering rocks.

“Fool’s Gold,” he explains to her. “Pyrite, in this case on an igneous base. Normally volcanic, you see? But here? Who knows.”

He picks up a rock and tilts it back and forth in the sunlight, making it sparkle. She likes that, jumping up and down and clapping her hands.

“Can you say ‘pyrite’?”

She cocks her head and smiles at him, and he puts the rock in his bag.

They move on, and at the edge of the creek she finds a smooth silver pebble. She holds it up excitedly and runs over to show it to him.

“Very good, young lady. That’s hematite, sometimes also referred to as bloodstone.” He sits down on the ground. “Of course it might be totally something else, but from the looks of it I’d say hematite. Some of the indigenous peoples of Earth associate it with womanhood and the moon, I guess because of its silvery sheen, and the fact that if you cut it and rinse it, it literally bleeds red, because of its high iron content. It’s literally rusty. Cool, isn’t it?”

She pets the rock, holds it up to her mouth and kisses it.

“All right, we’ll take it back, too,” Kwan says and holds out his hand. She gives it to him and he wraps it in a piece of cloth and puts it in his pocket.

“There. All safe. Now, who wants an airplane ride?”

And Carmen’s wails are laced with laughter as he whirls her around until they both topple over, the world spinning, out of breath.

 ****  
oOo  


TJ knows what happened in the crashed shuttle. Riley’s wounds were fatal, without a doubt, but he had hours left, not minutes. The moment she sees Young walking out of the wreck, alone, a shadow of the man she used to know, she understands with a flash of unwanted insight what he’s done. What he had to do.

She’s a healer, more so since they arrived on the Destiny than ever before. The concept of taking a life is repulsive to her, but she also understands combat and self-defense.

And she understands suicide and mercy killings. As horrible as they may be, she has seen them before and while they sadden her beyond all reason she respects them based on the circumstances.

She had no way of saving Riley. She was going to stay with him and either die as well, being left behind, or she would have given him her sidearm.

She hates Young for what he did, for what he had to do, and she admires and respects him at the same time.

And later, when she cries, she cries for Young as well as Riley. She cries for two more embers of innocence lost, another two spots in the universe gone dark.

She watches him carry a bottle back to his quarters, after the brief memorial service.

What right does she have to intervene?

Their daughter is gone. She can’t even use the “Carmen needs her father” argument.

And so she lets him go, hears him cough as his door shuts and locks, hears the self-loathing, shock, rage and disbelief in his breath.

She goes to the infirmary and places a tiny drop of venom on her tongue.

She barely makes it back to her room before blessed unconsciousness claims her.

  
**oOo**

They both look up at the sudden thump on the window.

Carmen is helping Rachel dry the dishes after dinner. “Let’s go see what that was,” Rachel says, and Carmen follows her outside. Beneath the window a small bird is flapping weakly.

Rachel mutters curses under her breath, as she tries to keep Carmen from picking it up.

“He’s dying, honey. He crashed into the window. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

She tries to pull her away, but Carmen resists with surprising strength, uttering an anguished cry that stuns Rachel momentarily. She lets go, and Carmen runs and picks up the bird, hugging it tightly to her chest.

It has stopped moving.

And for the first time she sees the little girl cry – big tears running down her rosy cheeks, a few quiet sobs.

Rachel kneels down next to her.

“I’m so sorry,” she repeats. “I wish you hadn’t seen that. We can bury him tomorrow.”

She tries to take the dead bird from her, but Carmen twists out of her grasp and scurries off. Rachel sighs and follows her.

Carmen walks out into the dusky yard a few steps and gently lays the bird down on a flat rock. She pats it as if to implore it to stay and then runs into the cabin, and Rachel hears her rummaging in her box of found objects by the door.

She comes back with the hematite she found the other day.

Rachel watches as she turns towards one of the planet’s moons, rising full and pink on the horizon. She holds out the rock to the light and closes her eyes. Rachel is more than a little spooked as she recognizes the motion from the other week, when Carmen had reached out to the sun.

After a minute of silent contemplation the little girl places the gem next to the dead bird and strokes it gently, humming a tuneless melody to herself.

Rachel shakes herself out of the moment. “Carmen –,“ she begins, but right then the bird flutters and kicks its feet, and Carmen picks it up gently and launches it up into the air with a happy cry.

The bird flies off towards the moon.

Rachel stares openmouthed, as Carmen picks up her stone, smiles at her and goes back into the house.

 ****  
oOo  


She stands in the middle of his room as he enters.

“Hi Daddy,” she says quietly.

He shakes his head, pours himself a drink and gulps it down quickly.

“Not today,” he says. “I’m not going to do this today.” Or any other day, he tells himself in helpless anger.

She’s quiet, watching as he drinks, as he cries.

She waits until his limbs grow heavy, his movements uncoordinated. He spills some of the liquid.

She climbs up on the sofa, kneels next to him and leans against his shoulder.

“I killed him,” he whispers.

She nods.

“I’m sorry, Daddy.”

He reaches for the bottle again, and she steadies his hand as he pours. She watches him drink.

“I wanted to help,” she says finally, and he turns and looks at her with blood-shot eyes.

“I’m sure you did,” he scoffs. “I see you can talk today. And you’ve grown quite a bit.”

She nods. “Big girl.”

He looks away.

“How do I know what you would say? And if you’re really here, how did you learn to talk so fast?”

She gestures at the ceiling.

“I grow up.”

“Some of them do.” And tears spill down his face again.

She touches his cheek. “Don’t cry, daddy. He’s better now. He flew to the moon.”

And Young turns to look at her, her dark eyes, her curly blond hair, red lips and pink cheeks. She’s beautiful. And he wants her to be real so badly it tears his heart to pieces.

“The moon, huh?” he says, and she smiles and nods.

She hops off the sofa, runs over to the desk and picks up a piece of paper.

“I drew something for you,” she says.

“Oh?”

She hands him the paper. On it are two crude drawings. She points at the first one, a sickle-shaped object.

“That’s mommy TJ.”

She points at the second one, a circle with dashes emanating from it to all directions.

“That’s you, daddy.”

“Moon and sun?”

She nods, her eyes bright.

He avoids her gaze and she leans against his shoulder again.

“I’m real, daddy,” she whispers. “I’m here.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you.”

 ****  
oOo  


“And I’m telling you, that bird was dead as a doornail.” Rachel gestures wildly. “She picked him up and hugged him and did this strange moon call, and it came back to life and flew off.”

“It could have just been stunned,” Dana suggests.

“No.” Rachel shakes her head. “I’ve held stunned birds before, at the wildlife rehab center back home. This one was definitely dead. One of its wings was broken, an open fracture, there was no way in the world it could have flown again.”

Caine shrugs.

“I think we have only begun to see what she can do. I mean, we all know she’s not an ordinary child. She’s grown up way too fast, she understands everything but she doesn’t speak, she communes with the sun and the moon, she heals diseases and injuries, and now she brings dead birds back to life.” He leans back in his chair. “I for one am not surprised. She has Their ear. Whatever she wants, They probably do. Who are we to say it’s wrong?”

They sit in silence for some time.

The pitter patter of naked feet makes them look up. Carmen joins them, dressed in her favorite night shirt which barely fits her now. She walks up to Norris and kisses him on the cheek, then climbs into Kwan’s lap.

Kwan bounces her on his knees.

“You’re gonna be too big for horsey rides on my knees soon,” he smiles, and she laughs happily as he makes her go faster. Then he tickles her and she wails, squirming in his lap like a floppy fish.

They all laugh at her antics.

 ****  
oOo  


He falls asleep on the sofa, passed out from the alcohol. She takes the paper from his limp fingers and slips it under the blotter of his desk.

She watches him for a long time, framed by the gently flickering lights from the window.

She thinks he’s beautiful, despite everything. She runs her fingers through his curly hair, so much longer than he’s had it since high school. She feels the ridges of a now-healed wound on the back of his head, feels the minute fracture in his skull caused by the impact.

She traces his elegant eyebrows, the deep rings beneath his eyes, dark with worry and pain from too many tears left unshed. She touches his cheek bones, his nose, the scar he still bears between his eyes. She thinks the scar gone, and when she looks again, it is. Satisfied, she nods to herself and ghosts her fingertips over his full lips, now slightly parted in sleep relaxation. She smiles at the rough stubble on his chin and jaw and how it tickles, the dark reddish growth that has pushed through his otherwise smooth skin.

He’s drooling profusely.

She wipes his chin, kisses him on the cheek.

She loves him so much, she would do anything for him.

If only she could.

 ****  
oOo  


She gets to go out by herself now, not too far, but still without one of the adults constantly hovering over her. She’s aware that more often than not there’s a watchful pair of eyes on her, from behind a curtained window, or from around the corner of a cabin, from behind a tree. She doesn’t mind – it makes them feel better, and she likes it when they’re happy. She helps with all the chores, they never even have to ask her.

She seems perfectly content to be on her own, as much as she relishes their company, but she keeps busy by herself, observing the animals and plants and collecting rocks and shells from little creek creatures.

She greets the sun in the morning, raising her arms and turning her palms towards the first warming rays of light. She loves to watch the sunset, sitting quietly by the lake, first with one of the grown-ups but increasingly often by herself.

She greets the moon, reaching out and singing wordless, tuneless songs, her voice floating through the valley like little silver bells.

She grows quickly.

She never speaks.

 ****  
oOo  


“It’s healing,” TJ says in response to Chloe’s inquiry. Chloe wants to know more but she avoids her questions.

“Let’s look at that gunshot wound of yours.” Chloe pulls down her pants.

“Wow, that looks great! You’ll probably have a scar there, but it looks like the muscle tissue has knitted perfectly. Any pain there?”

Chloe shakes her head. “None whatsoever.” TJ frowns a little as she examines Chloe’s leg.

“Well, you’re still young, so you heal faster.”

“Not that much younger than you,” Chloe protests.

TJ smiles, her lips firmly pressed together.

“Let’s just be happy you’re doing so well, okay?”

Chloe senses the end of the conversation as if it flashed in red letters over her head.

“Okay,” she agrees.

She watches the medic put her supplies away and leaves quietly, not knowing what else to say.

 ****  
oOo  


“Here we are.”

Peter stops next to a tall dead tree on the other side of the valley. Carmen lets go of his hand and shields her eyes as she gazes up into the bare branches. She pats the tree trunk and looks at Peter.

He scratches his head and wipes his brow in the warm sun.

“Well, I’m not sure what killed it. Trees don’t die of old age, you see. They eventually succumb to outside damage. Like insects or storms. Or drought and flooding and stuff like that. Fires.”

He examines the trunk more closely.

“Yeah, I bet that’s what happened here,” he mutters and she taps his arm.

“Okay, see this crack running right through here? I’m guessing it’s a stress fracture, from a storm. Then the rain water started seeping in and it froze in the winter. The ice expanded and made the crack wide enough for all sorts of fungi and insects to get to the marrow, and so it got hollowed out in the living parts, and then it died.”

Carmen looks sad.

“Hey, it’s all right, kiddo. It probably made millions of seeds over its lifetime that were carried off by the wind or the birds, and maybe it planted an entire new forest with its babies.”

She turns towards the tree and wraps her arms around it, resting her cheek against the rough bark.

Peter feels a little awkward, half expecting the tree to suddenly sprout new leaves again, but then Carmen just pats the trunk gently and steps back.

Peter opens his pack and removes the axe. “So, I want you to sit way over there by the big rock, and if something happens and it falls the wrong way, I want you to hide behind it, you understand? I’m not a lumberjack, so I might screw this up. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

She smiles at him, picks up her own bundle and skips over to the large boulder.

He waves at her, she waves back, and he gets to work. He starts chopping a triangular cut into the base of the tree, ensuring it faces the clearing so the tree will come down cleanly without damaging others, and to make the collection of firewood easier afterwards.

It’s hard work but it needs to be done.

 ****  
oOo  


“Come on, daddy,” she tugs on his sleeve.

He inhales deeply and cracks open an eye. “What,” he rasps.

“You need to go to bed.”

He grunts in response and turns his head the other way.

She’s persistent, though and bugs him until he sits up with a groan, his head feeling as if it’s about to implode. She’s grown again and her nudges are hard to ignore.

Little hands pull down the zipper of his jacket and tug at his sleeves. He groans as stiff muscles protest his movements – sure enough, he gets stuck in his own jacket, trying to free his arms from where they are trapped in the inverted fabric. She pulls, and eventually the jacket comes off.

“Lea’ me ‘lone,” he slurs. She tugs on his shoe laces and with some difficulty unties his boots.

He reaches down in reflex to push, as she pulls with all her strength.

“Peee-oo,” she waves her hand in front of her face. “Daddy, your feet smell bad.”

He looks down. “What?”

“Your feet. They smell bad,” she repeats.

“I know,” he sighs.

“You need to wash up, daddy.”

“I know.”

He grunts as she pulls him to his feet. He unzips his pants and nearly falls over as he tries to pull them off.

“Careful, daddy,” she says and takes the pants from him, draping them over the back of the sofa.

“You need to shower,” she reminds him.

“Later,” he says.

“Okay, later,” she concedes. He’s in no condition to stand up, let alone walk to the showers.

He sits on the edge of the bed and tugs his shirt off, and she has to help him wrestle with it, but they manage eventually. She pulls the blanket down and he slides in. She drags the blanket back up to his chest.

He falls asleep again immediately.

She sits on the edge of the bed, dangling her legs.

His quarters, usually so spartan and organized, are a mess.

Maybe tomorrow she’ll clean up a little.

She scoots up on the bed and reaches for his hand, now open to the ceiling, fingers relaxed. His crippled finger sticks out at an odd angle; sadly, she can’t do anything about such an old injury. She closes her eyes and begins to massage it gently, a simple rub over twisted bones. She feels him move, and when she opens her eyes she finds him looking at her.

“Why are you doing this,” he asks, with sudden sobriety.

“Because it’s wrong. It needs to be like the other fingers.”

“No, I mean, why are you here? How can you grow up so fast? Are you my guardian angel?”

She smiles, a little sadly. “There are no angels, daddy. I can’t fix you or help you. All I can do is love you.”

“Why?” His voice is a mere whisper.

“Because you love me.”

 ****  
oOo  


It takes Peter the whole day to cut the first notch into the dead tree – he wishes he had a bigger axe.

“Carmen? Let’s go home.”

No answer.

Peter sighs. He walks over to the boulder and sure enough, there she is, curled up in the fragrant grass, fast asleep. He is loath to wake her, she looks so peaceful, smiling in her sleep, and so he sits down a short distance away and gazes out over the valley.

He’s startled by the light touch on his arm. Carmen holds up the axe to him.

He’s surprised how strong she’s become, to be able to lift the heavy tool. He grins. “Ready to go?”

She beckons him to follow and leads him off into the opposite direction, despite his protests, but then he sees the large bush with plump purple berries. She pulls up a wide bowl-shaped piece of bark, and together they pick berries until she can barely carry the load.

They slowly make their way home, snacking on their loot on the way.

Kwan and Norris make a pie with the rest.

 ****  
oOo  


“Hey, TJ.”

“Lisa? What’s wrong?”

Lisa smiles. “Nothing. I cut myself on a sharp edge of a pot in the kitchen. Darren says to let you check it out.”

“Let me see. Hey, Koz? Would you get the kit, please?”

The young man jumps up and pulls an ammo box off a shelf as TJ moves a lamp over Lisa’s hand.

“Hmm… that’s a pretty deep cut. A pot, you say?”

Lisa nods.

“Thanks, Koz. I need you and Corporal Barnes to go to the kitchen and find the pot, see if Brody or Dunning can file off that sharp edge. The next person might lose a limb.”

Lisa giggles. “Or more.”

TJ smiles.

“I’m gonna put a couple of stitches in, all right? We’re so low on supplies, and this will make it heal much faster.”

Lisa helps her clean the cut and apply a tiny amount of the venom but averts her eyes as TJ puts in the stitches. When Koz and Barnes return Lisa is already applying her own wound dressing.

TJ points at a cabinet. “The vine leaves, please.”

Koz fetches the container, and TJ hands Lisa a small bag of tea leaves. “You know the drill,” she says, and Lisa nods. Koz snickers as he puts the container back. “I’d recommend a trip to Mr. Brody’s still as well,” he suggests. Lisa rolls her eyes. “No, he’s right, actually,” TJ says. “If nothing else it’ll distract you.”

“Okay.”

She gets up to leave but then turns again and wraps her arms around the medic, her hand bent at the wrist.

“Thanks,” TJ whispers with tears in her eyes, as she finally lets go.

 ****  
oOo  


“Shower, daddy.”

She holds out the pillow case he’s been using as a towel.

“Do you have any clean clothes?”

Young groans and covers his face with his hands.

“Come on, daddy!” She shoves at him none too gently.

He rolls out of bed, holding his head in his hands, willing the room to stop spinning.

“Clothes,” she repeats.

“Go away.”

“Daddy. Where are the clean clothes?”

“Dresser under the mirror.”

She walks over and pulls open a drawer, removing a pair of threadbare shorts and socks, and a faded t-shirt that seems way too big for him.

She hands him the clothes and slaps him lightly with the pillow case.

He rubs his face and gets up.

“Be right back,” he mumbles.

“I’m coming with you.”

That wakes him up for good. “What? No. What if someone sees you?”

“They won’t.”

“Oh, right, I’m not going to share my hallucinations.”

She smiles and rolls her eyes a little.

“Let’s go.”

He staggers down the hall to the showers, she’s tall enough now to provide some actual support. It’s late and everyone is at breakfast, so they don’t see anyone else.

She watches from the outside as he struggles to stay upright. She knocks on the door.

“Daddy? You all right?”

He grunts in response and turns off the mist jets.

Minutes later he emerges, all ruffled but looking a little better. She takes the pillow case and the discarded shorts and walks him back to his quarters – a zigzag path, to be sure, but they get there eventually. He dozes off several times as she tries to pull on his socks, and he nearly topples over putting on his pants.

“Sit,” she orders him, and then pulls on his boots, lacing them properly, and he wonders for a moment when she learned to do that. She holds out his jacket for him and after a few failed attempts he manages to slide his arms into the sleeves and pull it on. She zips it up halfway.

“There,” she says, pleased with her handiwork. “Better?”

He nods, not looking at her.

She sits down next to him.

“What’s wrong, daddy?”

He bites his lip. “I’m such a mess,” he finally says.

“Yes, you are,” she agrees. “But you have to go now. You need to go to work.”

She tugs on his hand and he gets up and leaves without another word, without looking back.

She looks around his room and sighs, starting to pick up things and putting them away. She gathers the dirty clothes, sneaks out to the bathrooms and washes them, then hangs them up to dry over chair backs and conduits in his quarters.

She sighs.

 ****  
oOo  


The next day Dana and Peter take turns chopping away at the tree while Val and Carmen and Caine pick berries nearby.

Finally, finally, there is the tell-tale crack and the tree begins to lean.

“Timber!” Dana yells.

And as it falls it twists, and they see her too late, and the tree goes crashing down on Val who has brought them some berries as a snack.

Peter screams.

Dana runs over, and there is Val, her face streaked with blood, her eyes staring blindly ahead.

“No,“ Peter breathes. “Oh god, no.”

He sinks to his knees next to her as Dana sobs hysterically. Caine comes running with Carmen in tow, alarmed by the screaming and yelling.

He pales as he sees Val’s body.

Peter has collapsed next to her, crying inconsolably.

Dana clasps her hand over her mouth, staring at the scene in utter shock.

Nobody knows what to do. Caine tries to send Carmen away, but she tears herself out of his grip and approaches slowly, an expression of curiosity on her face. She bends down and touches Peter’s cheek, running her fingers through his tears, gently pushing him aside.

Caine looks at Dana, and she helps him pull Peter back. He fights them, but Carmen places her finger across his mouth and he grows quiet.

She kneels down next to Val’s body, closes her eyes and hums a melody, a song none of them recognize, and the birds and crickets around them grow quiet, as if their world was holding its breath.

Then she reaches out to the sun, palms towards the light, smiling as it warms her face, her hands, tears running down her cheeks. She sighs and places one hand on her chest, the other on Val’s forehead.

They stand and watch, helpless, scared, as if in a trance.

And Val opens her eyes and blinks at them in confusion.

“Hey guys, what happened?”

Carmen steps back, turns around and slowly walks away, out into the meadow and towards the sun, as if in deep thought.

Caine is the first to shake himself out of it. He rushes to Val who is trying to sit up.

“Easy, Val,” he says. Peter cries out and hugs her, sobbing so hard he can barely breathe.

“Stupid tree fell on me,” Val says. “Man, I got a headache. Hey, it’s all right! I’m all right.”

Dana shakes her head.

“No, you’re not,” she whispers.

Caine gives her a stern look as he helps Val up. Peter has pulled out a handkerchief, spits on it and begins to wipe at Val’s face. Dana looks around.

“Carmen?”

She’s gone.

 ****  
oOo  


“Dad?”

He’s already drunk by the time he returns to his quarters.

She looks at him with concern and gently pries the bottle from his fingers. Her head reaches up to his shoulder now, and he leans heavily on her.

He lets her lead him to the sofa. She takes off his jacket, his boots.

“Did you eat something?”

He shakes his head – he can’t even remember the last time he ate.

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. Minutes later there is a knock on the door and Airman Dunning’s muffled voice informing him about his rations being right outside.

She waits, then opens the door and fetches the plate with assorted vegetables and a cup of water.

He sits and stares.

“You gotta eat something, dad. It’s just going to be worse without food.”

He doesn’t react.

She sets the plate down and leans over, grasping his chin, making him look at her. He contemplates her sadly, dejectedly, his lips twitching, and then the tears come again.

She can’t help it, she cries, too.

“Please eat something,” she begs. “For me, then. Please, dad.”

She holds a small tomato up to his mouth, and he relents and eats it.

She feeds him, piece by piece, kissing his tears away.

He doesn’t say anything.

 ****  
oOo  


“Yes, ma’m, I brought him the food a couple of hours ago,” Dunning confirms. TJ nods.

“Good. Did he eat it?”

“Gee, I don’t know. He wouldn’t open the door so I left it there. It was gone a short while later - I assume he took it.”

TJ sighs and gets up, slowly walking down the hall to his quarters.

There is an empty plate with a cup on top in front of his door.

She picks up the dishes and knocks.

“Sir? It’s TJ. Open up, please.”

A short while later the door slides open, and she’s stunned to see him, all disheveled and messy. “Yes,” he says brusquely.

“I just wanted to make sure you got your dinner all right. We missed you in the mess this evening.”

“I got it, thank you,” he mutters and reaches for the door panel, shutting her out.

She bites her lip, fights back her tears.

She stares at the door for a while, then slowly makes her way to the kitchen to return the dishes.

She doesn’t know what else to do.

 ****  
oOo  


“Really, guys, I’m fine!”

“You were dead, Val.” Peter can’t seem to let go of her hand. “I saw it happen. That big branch hit you squarely on the head.”

“Carmen brought you back,” Rachel adds. “The same way she brought that bird back, a while ago.”

Dana frowns. “Where is Carmen? Isn’t she supposed to be with you tonight?”

Caine sighs. “She’s gone again. Nobody’s seen her since it happened.”

“Well, for heaven’s sake, did you even look for her? She could be lost out there!”

Kwan opens his mouth to answer when the front door opens. A moment later Carmen enters, lugging two big buckets full of berries.

They all stare at her.

She smiles and gestures at the buckets. They all scramble to help her, and then they all spend the evening together, picking over the fruit and making preserves and pies until late in the night.

Carmen does as much work as the others. She’s almost as tall as Dana now.

When they’re done she helps with the cleanup, then sits outside watching the moon rise, greeting the light as always.

Val contemplates her for a while, then sits down quietly next to her.

“Thanks for what you did today. You didn’t have to do it, but I’m glad you did. I wasn’t ready to go quite yet.”

Carmen doesn’t look at her, but she taps her chest twice, takes Val’s hand and squeezes it gently.

 ****  
oOo  


She watches him sleep, watches his dream as he dreams it, and she’s a little scared. It’s the same dream over and over, a different story, but always with the same outcome, every time he falls asleep, and she can’t stop it, it’s not a dream he made inside himself, it’s an artificial construct. She understands its purpose but she disagrees with the method.

She’s not here to save him. She’s here because he loves her. Because she loves him.

He doesn’t talk to her anymore. He barely notices she’s there, even though she’s already a tiny bit taller than him.

She gets angry with him, with everything, but he’s caught in the artificial nightmare, and she has no way to wake him from it.

The ship has stopped moving. She misses the blue rainbow lights in his room.

And so she gets up and goes after the dream; she quietly slips out and makes her way through the ship, tips off the young man brooding over data and the older bearded man who’s working at a console; she whispers it to the dark-haired woman reading in the lounge and to the young lieutenant dozing on his watch, stealing away again before she’s discovered.

From then on, it’s just a matter of watching and waiting, as the pieces fall into place one by one, as the crew solves the puzzle of their commander’s somnolent hell.

She watches when the young lieutenant comes over with a strong cup of tea and a pep talk. He’s pretty good, she admits. She could never speak to him this way. He’s her father, she doesn’t understand what it’s like for him, how he takes care of all the others. She only takes care of him. It’s all she knows.

“Dad.”

She holds out the cup of tea to him.

He accepts it, takes a tiny sip, winces at the taste of the absinthian brew.

“All of it, dad.”

She steadies his hand, shaky from the lack of real sleep, from sheer exhaustion.

He weeps silently as he finishes the drink. She pulls him up off the sofa, noticing in passing how much weight he’s lost. He seems so small, so fragile, as if he’s about to disappear altogether. She cups his face in her hands and kisses his wet cheeks, tasting his bitter-salty tears.

“Come on.”

She grabs the clothes she’s washed, takes his hand and leads him to the showers. She scrubs his back and washes his feet, as he holds on to the door for balance.

She helps him wash his hair, then dries him off and hands him the fresh clothes.

He follows her back to his room.

She urges him over to the dresser with the mirror, hands him the razor.

She watches him shave. She loves the sound of the little whiskers being sheared off by the blade. It’s a funny sound, a sound of clean, a sound of normal.

He stops several times, sets the razor down. She picks it up, turns it on again, closes his hand around it.

He finally finishes.

She pulls out a comb and untangles his hair, and he closes his eyes as she gently massages his scalp. He looks up at her and smiles, and she touches his face, stroking along his jaw, his chin.

“Better?” he asks her.

She nods and smiles. “Much better.”

He sighs and gets up, shrugging on his jacket, fastening his TAC vest over it.

She kisses him on the cheek as he leaves. “Go now,” she whispers.

And for the first time he stops and gathers her in his arms and they hug. She feels him tremble, feels his big warm hands on her back, inhales his scent, the smell of alcohol barely there now. He holds her as if he could never let her go again. She finally takes his face in her hands again and kisses his forehead, gently, lingering.

“Go.”

He looks at her silently, then nods and turns away.

The door closes behind him.

She sits down and cries. She’s happy.

“Good bye, dad,” she whispers.

Soon the rainbow lights begin their ethereal dance again. She watches for some time, then steps to the window and looks out.

She closes her eyes.

The room is empty.

 ****  
oOo  


She’s gone for longer periods of time, now. She’s all grown up, and she still hasn’t spoken a single word. Not that she’s ever needed to, they’ve always understood her.

She’s made a necklace out of the hematite and it lines up with the birthmark on her skin.

She wanders off by herself, blazing new trails and then showing them what she’s found: a waterfall, a cave system, a large rookery of birds where they can collect eggs, and she makes it clear to them that they are to take no more than one egg per nest. She shows them how to pick the freshly laid ones so as not to kill a developed chick.

She shows them fruit trees and mountainsides full of plants whose roots are delicious when roasted over the fire. She discovers nuts, and grasses heavy with grain, and many dead trees they can fell and chop up for firewood. They are careful, and they learn to fend for themselves.

And one day she’s gone for good.

They still find traces of her – a cairn of glittering rocks, a dead tree decorated with feathers and flowers and shells, a large piece of bark piled high with a new kind of berry at their door.

They don’t look for her. They know that she will return if she wants to, when They see a need.

They know she has gone home.

 ****  
oOo  


Eventually TJ stops dreaming of the manufactured planet and her daughter growing up there in the span of a year. When the Eden settlers all return in a brand-new shuttle, she knows it wasn’t real, she finally has to face the truth. They confirm Carmen had never been there, and then they are all dead before she knows it. She accepts that it was Destiny who had started it all, and as creeped out as she is by the thought of the ship probing her mind, she understands the need to comfort those you love. And the memory of her journey helps ease her pain. She touches her scar, now nothing more than a thin red line, slightly raised.

TJ knows there are more planes of existence than she can fathom, and just because this group of people had a different experience from the people in her dreams doesn’t mean it was any less real.

In her heart she knows her daughter lives on, a child of the sun and the moon, a child of the universe.

 ****  
oOo  


Young’s life returns to normal, one day at a time, as normal as things get on the Destiny.

Sometimes he expects to see her there, in his room, but she never comes back. Sometimes he thinks he’s imagined it all, and he shakes his head, knowing he could have never made it up. He’s come to accept that there are things which he’ll never understand, because they’re not his to know, not yet.

It’s a long time later when finds a crude drawing of the sun and the moon under his blotter, and he cries a little at her memory. Maybe it was Destiny who sent her to him, but the drawings suggest otherwise. And then he finally goes and tells TJ about it, and she smiles at him wistfully and tells him about her dreams.

“She was too beautiful for this life,” he says to her. She nods.

“I still miss her.”

“We’ll always miss her.”

 ****  
oOo  


She watches over them, she lets life take its course.

She’s content.

The sun is her father.

The moon is her mother.

And she is transformed yet again.

 ****  
  
  


****  
  
oOo  


  
_le soleil est mon père  
la lune est ma mère  
et moi  
je suis mercure transformé:  
l’enfant divin  
   
the sun is my father  
the moon is my mother  
and I  
I am mercury transformed:  
the divine child   
   
_   
  
_R. Murray Schafer: Le Théâtre Noir D’Hermès Trismégiste_

  
  
**oOo**  


 

  


  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/shena8/pic/0003sgze)   
  


 

  
**Artwork for "L'Enfant Divin" by Shenandoah Risu**.

Please click on the thumbnail for a large version. 

  



End file.
